


ArgumentException

by AjaGolde



Category: Tron (1982), Tron (Movies), Tron: Legacy (2010)
Genre: Angst, C#, Canon Compliant, Computer Programming, Dysfunctional Family, Family Bonding, Flynn Feels, Friendship, Gen, Where did Flynn go wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 20:05:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9200279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AjaGolde/pseuds/AjaGolde
Summary: Console.Write("Greetings, Flynn. Have you created the perfect system?");





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The code is written in C# because that's all I know, so apologies for the anachronism (C# wasn't around until the year 2000). The code does actually run and I've posted it in chapter 2 for the curious.

using System;  
using System.Collections.Generic;  
using System.Linq;  
using System.Text;  
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace PerfectSystem  
{  
class Program  
{  
static void Main()  
{  
Console.Write("Greetings, Flynn. Have you created the perfect system?");  
string answer = Console.ReadLine();  
if (answer == "yes")

The ISOs thrill him in a way he’s never been thrilled before, and he’s driven a lightcycle (which is pretty darn thrilling). The mystery of their birth consumes him and he will stop at nothing to find the answers he seeks.

The light blinks on suddenly, and he stumbles into the wall momentarily, caught off guard.

“Kevin, it is 2am.”

He knows that short, curt tone anywhere. His mother stands on the stairs, wrapped up tight in her nightgown, and glares down at him.

“Guessing Sam’s already asleep,” Flynn grins sheepishly.

“He tried to stay up, waiting for you.”

“I’ll see him in the morning before I go.”

“You need to start coming home earlier.”

He tries to pass her on the stairs, but she won’t move to let him sidle by. He sighs and takes her by the shoulders, bussing a kiss on her cheek.

“Thanks for watching him, mom.”

“I shouldn’t be watching him at all,” she snaps, “you’re his father. You need to be here.”

“I will, I will, I promise. It’s just – something’s come up. Something big. A miracle.”

He can’t stop the smile spreading across his face, the pure amazement still catching him off guard. A new digital frontier, beckoning him.

“You have a miracle right here,” she mutters.

He’ll show Sam. One day. He tries again to pass her, but she stops him with a hand on his chest.

“Kevin, I’m worried about you. You’re never home; and when you are, you’re still not here.”

“Everything’s going to be fine,” he takes her hand, places a distant kiss on it, “now that I’ve done it.”

“Done what?”

“Created the perfect system,” he grins. The perfect system: a system that creates itself. His new world, his future, his destiny.

He finally moves past her but she stops him with one final question.

“Are you happy?” she asks.

He stares into the dark stairwell ahead of him, a long tunnel of unknown.

“Yes,” he answers.

  
{  
Console.Write("Are you happy?");  
string answer2 = Console.ReadLine();  
if (answer2 == "yes")  
{  
Console.Write("Exception detected. Parameter answer2 '{0}' is false. Program terminated.", answer2);  
Console.ReadKey();  
throw new ArgumentException("answer2"");  
}

The darkness of the Outlands swallow him whole. Never again to see the glittering light of Tron City, or the strong beam of the portal, or the soft warmth of the sun. He is alone in darkness, alone in friends. The ISOs: destroyed. Tron: derezzed. Clu: traitor. Bradley: unreachable. Sam:….

His miracle is no more.

if (answer2 == "no")  
{  
Console.Write("Stop searching so hard");  
Console.ReadKey();  
}

  
He knows he’s in trouble when Bradley shows up. Flynn is in the loft of the arcade (because there’s a couch and his back is killing him. Everything is killing him), drawing up more plans for the Grid.

“It’s 2am, Bradley,” he sighs.

He knew he shouldn’t have given him an extra set of keys.

“It is. Shouldn’t you be home by now?”

Alan’s a tall, stern figure in the doorway and Flynn really wishes everyone – programs and Users alike - would just leave him alone. He’s almost done it. He just needs a bit more time.

“Flynn, you’re miserable.”

“Jesus, Bradley. You don’t pull any punches.”

“You’re making everyone else miserable, too.”

“Piss off then,” he gives him the middle finger.

“Should I pass that message on to Sam?”

Flynn’s papers fall to the floor and he drags an arm over his eyes. Everything suddenly seems too bright.

“Of course not, don’t be an idiot,” he mutters.

“You’re the only idiot here. Now get out of the arcade and don’t come back for another two days.”

Two. Days. Shit, that’s a long time in Grid time.

“I’ll watch over the arcade.” Alan jingles the keys meaningfully, heavily implying he’ll be stationed here to keep Flynn out.

“Is this an intervention?”

Alan walks over and peers down at him. The pinched expression of constipated worry is so much like Tron’s that he almost laughs. He doesn’t though; Alan looks one breath away from committing him to a hospital.

“Spend a weekend with your family. Sam needs it. And so do you.”

There’s a bone-deep weariness in Flynn when he thinks of the long ride home. When he thinks of moving. Or when he thinks of thinking.

“You’d be a good dad,” Flynn says suddenly.

Alan raises his eyebrows, “No thanks. Looking after you and your spawn is more than enough trouble for me.”

“You would look after him, wouldn’t you?” he latches onto the idea with a sudden fierceness.

“What? Of course I would.”

“Good,” Flynn settles back down, something in him relieved. Why? Nothing’s going to happen. The Grid is perfect. Or will be. Where are his plans? He pats the couch for them. Did he drop them?

He wishes he could think straight. He’s just so tired.

“When did you last sleep?” Alan frowns at him.

Flynn waves a hand languidly in the air.

“Get up you great lump, I’ll drive you home.”

Alan shepherds him out of the arcade, half-carrying him to Alan’s rust bucket car. As Alan is unlocking the door, he poses a soft query.

“I hope whatever you’re doing is worth it.”

“It is. It will be,” Flynn answers, though he’s not sure if he was supposed to.

Alan pushes him into the passenger seat and stares at him, head haloed by streetlamps, face dark and unrecognizable. The vision swims and Flynn’s eyes hurt. His head pounds.

“Are you happy, Flynn?”

“No,” he whispers.

“Then maybe you’re searching too hard,” something that sounds like Tron or Alan or Jordan whispers back.

Flynn falls asleep on the drive home and doesn’t remember.

else  
{  
Console.Write("Input is not recognized");  
Console.ReadKey();  
}

 

whywhywhywhywhywhy

 

}  
if (answer == "no")  
{  
Console.Write("Are you happy?");  
string answer3 = Console.ReadLine();  
if (answer3 == "yes")  
{  
Console.Write("Then stop. Go out there and be happy.");  
Console.ReadKey();  
}

  
Flynn drinks in Sam’s strong profile, the crooked grin he thought he’d never see again, the hug he thought he’d never have again, the voice he thought he’d never hear again. He’d been tired and removed for so long, but now Sam is here, and angry, and a stranger, and Flynn has to meditate and regain his balance because….

Because the wants and hopes are back, flooding in with such potency that his Zen walls almost shatter under the onslaught.

He doesn’t know what it means.

“I failed him,” he tells Quorra as they drive to the End of Line club.

She places one hand over his, eyes still trained on the road.

“I failed everyone,” he mutters, thoughts drifting further and further back, “the system was never perfect. I failed it by trying to make it so. And yet….”

He captures Sam’s wry smile in his mind, the little bits of Flynn’s slang that Sam must’ve retained all these years, the steely determination and life force that leave Flynn in awe and so, so, so proud. Even though he is going to _kill_ Sam for running off like that.

“And yet you’re happy,” Quorra finishes his sentence.

“Yeah,” he says, like he can hardly believe it.

He has Sam again.

“Then stop thinking about it so much and just be happy,” Quorra says.

“How’d you get so smart?”

“I had a great teacher,” she flips him a grin.

And then she flips the car and nails the landing just to show off. These kids will be the death of him, man.

 

if (answer3 == "no")  
{  
Console.Write("What are you searching for, Flynn?");  
Console.ReadKey();  
}

“I did everything…everything you ever asked!”

And still the system wasn’t perfect. And still Flynn wasn’t happy.

“I know you did,” Flynn answers.

Clu’s expression is ugly and betrayed, twisted with abandonment and disappointment and rage. Flynn feels that hurt in his own heart, where it’d been curdling for years. The platform under his feet buckles, as if the entire Grid is mirroring his pain and finally crumbling under the weight of all of Flynn’s mistakes.

He’d been searching so hard. For perfection. For happiness.

It had been right in front of him all along.

 

else  
{  
Console.Write("Input is not recognized");  
Console.ReadKey();  
}

AmIstilltocreatetheperfectsystem

}  
else  
{  
Console.Write("Input is not recognized");  
Console.ReadKey();  
}

ThethingaboutperfectionisthatitisunknowableImsorry  
Imsosorry

  
}  
}  
}


	2. Chapter 2

using System;

 

namespace PerfectSystem

{

    class Program

    {

        static void Main()

        {

            Console.Write("Greetings, Flynn. Have you created the perfect system?");

            string answer = Console.ReadLine();

            if (answer == "yes")

                {

                Console.Write("Are you happy?");

                string answer2 = Console.ReadLine();

                if (answer2 == "yes")

                {

                    Console.Write("Exception detected. Parameter answer2 '{0}' is false. Program terminated.", answer2);

                    Console.ReadKey();

                    throw new ArgumentException("answer2");

                }

                    if (answer2 == "no")

                    {

                    Console.Write("Stop searching so hard");

                    Console.ReadKey();

                    }

                else

                {

                    Console.Write("Input is not recognized");

                    Console.ReadKey();

                }

                }

             if (answer == "no")

                {

                    Console.Write("Are you happy?");

                    string answer3 = Console.ReadLine();

                if (answer3 == "yes")

                {

                    Console.Write("Then stop. Go out there and be happy.");

                    Console.ReadKey();

                }

                if (answer3 == "no")

                {

                   Console.Write("What are you searching for, Flynn?");

                   Console.ReadKey();

                }

               else

                {

                  Console.Write("Input is not recognized");

                  Console.ReadKey();

                }

                }

             else

                {

                Console.Write("Input is not recognized");

                Console.ReadKey();

                }      

                }

}

}


End file.
